HOUSTON — When the Houston Texans slumped so badly two seasons ago, going from the cusp of the playoffs to 6-10 irrelevance, almost everyone either wanted Gary Kubiak's hide, or they wanted it covered in tar and feathers.

Kubiak, the haters' chorus sang, was just a hack, guaranteeing mediocrity for all eternity. But Cowher? There was a true leader of men who had re-polished the Steelers' gold.

Of course, anyone who had done his or her homework would have observed that Cowher needed 14 seasons to return the Lombardi Trophy to Pittsburgh. Note, too, that he retired a year later after the Steelers stumbled to 8-8 and didn't make the playoffs.

As hard as building a successful team can be — Kubiak needed seven seasons to finally coax a playoff appearance, and victory, from the Texans — maintaining it is arguably the far more daunting task.

Although the Texans appear poised to contend for a championship after cracking the NFL's elite eight last season, the odds aren't in their favor. Recent trends suggest they're far more likely to tumble backward, at least for a season, rather than take the next step because that's what has happened to an overwhelming majority of teams in their shoes.

Since 1999, when the franchise formerly known as the Houston Oilers finally, and improbably, landed in the Super Bowl as the Tennessee Titans, a head coach has led his team into the playoffs for the first time on nearly 40 occasions. Yet only six of those teams took the next step the following year, and just one of them — Pittsburgh in 2008 — went on to win a title.

The latter was a unique circumstance, too. First-year coach Mike Tomlin's Steelers bore more than a passing resemblance to Cowher's long-in-coming Super Bowl champions of 2005. Tomlin had hardly started from scratch.

At the other end of the happiness-to-heartbreak spectrum: 25 times, a breakout season (10-6) such as the Texans celebrated in 2011 was followed by a broken one, with no playoff berth to be had.

It happened in Kansas City under three different coaches and thrice in Dallas, to Bill Parcells and Wade Phillips, who sprang forward only to fall back on two occasions.

Parcells' first season in Dallas produced a 10-6 record and a trip, albeit a short one, to the postseason. In Parcells' second year, the Cowboys slumped to 6-10, and he struck out the next two seasons, too, before throwing in the towel and retiring.

With Phillips in charge in 2007, Dallas went 13-3 but lost its first playoff game. After the Cowboys failed to make the playoffs with a 9-7 record the following season, they rebounded to 11-5 — but lost again straight away in the playoffs — before collapsing altogether in 2010, when Phillips was fired after a 1-7 start.

If the Texans are recession-proof, it will be because they are built on the soundest of foundations, possessing a dominant ball-control, clock-eating, Arian Foster-led offense to go with Phillips' havoc-wreaking defense. The latter prospers in large part because the former is so good at playing keep-away.

They won the league's possession-time title — on average, more than 32 minutes — in 2011 despite playing six games with rookie quarterback T. J. Yates under center.

However, the pressure of expectations seemingly complicates things hugely, as history indicates. So will a more perilous schedule, which the Texans confront in 2012. The defense could be stronger than it was a year ago yet still not fare as well because of the caliber of competition.

“We were kind of underdogs last year and a little under the radar,” Houston left tackle Duane Brown said. “Now we've got the nation's attention and a lot of prime-time games. People are going to be watching us close. Teams are going to come after us with their ‘A' game every week. Nobody's going to be sleeping on us. (But) man, we're hungrier than we've ever been. We know what (success) tastes like now.”